


vows under the auspices (only shooting stars)

by jacksgreyson



Category: Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant Zombies, Deathly Hallows, Future Fic, Gen, Master of Death (Harry Potter), Master of Death Harry Potter, Shinigami
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:48:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24331612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacksgreyson/pseuds/jacksgreyson
Summary: Making the world a better place isn't easy and happiness does not come for free.... But that doesn't mean they're not worth the effort.(Or, Shikako faces the future and hits the ground running)
Relationships: Gaara (Naruto) & Nara Shikako, Haku (Naruto) & Temari (Naruto), Kankurou (Naruto) & Nara Shikako, Nara Shikako & Harry Potter, Nara Shikako & Original Character(s), Nara Shikako & Temari (Naruto), Nara Shikako & Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 62
Kudos: 517
Collections: Exchange no Jutsu 2020, Heliocentrism — a Dreaming of Sunshine recursive collection





	vows under the auspices (only shooting stars)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JohnBurtonLee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JohnBurtonLee/gifts).
  * Inspired by [eloquence of unheard choices](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22179934) by [jacksgreyson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacksgreyson/pseuds/jacksgreyson). 



> Thanks to tuesday for being an awesome beta and wrangling my punctuation!

Unsurprisingly, Punchy assembles a textbook perfect mission pack, Stabby includes an excessive amount of weaponry, and Bitey tries to bring everything. Literally everything.

“But Sensei,” Yuu asks, “what if I need them?” Over a dozen oranges spill out awkwardly from the loose cradle of his arms. Behind him, Jinichi helps Sono organize her weapons into neat piles for further inspection.

Shikako doesn’t sigh, but she does give a quick glance upwards in sympathy toward all of her jounin sensei predecessors. She can’t say she and her team weren’t this bad—or, to be honest, far worse; poor Kakashi-sensei—but it’s another thing entirely to be on the other side of these shenanigans.

“Yuu…” she starts, resignedly looking at the heap of storage scrolls Yuu packed in his bag; no doubt each one filled to the brim with entirely unnecessary miscellany and impossible to sort besides. “Yuu, I don’t think we will need a dozen oranges on our mission,” she tries to reason with him. “I know it’s for two months and I know Hidden Sand is very different from Konoha, and that includes the produce available, but we’re going to be okay without them. Right now, if I asked you to pull out your sleeping roll, would you be able to figure out which of these it's in?”

Eyes narrowed, Yuu glances between his scrolls and her as if it were a trick question. “If I need my sleeping roll, that means we’re setting up camp for the night,” he argues, “which means I would have time to look through them.” He gestures, forgetting the precarious citrus situation in his arms, and the oranges tumble to the ground.

A few of them roll over to Jinichi and Sono, who decide to take the interruption as a signal for a break. Jinichi borrows one of the many kunai in front of him and begins slicing an orange into segments for Sono which she eats while watching Sensei and their teammate, as if being fed and entertained were merely her due.

Yuu tries not to react.

“And your medkit?” Shikako asks pointedly.

“Uh.” He picks up a scroll, seemingly at random, “It’s in this one?” Needless to say, his tone does not inspire confidence. “... Or maybe this one,” he mutters, picking up another one. He frowns at them, betrayed. “This wouldn’t be a problem if you taught me hammerspace,” Yuu adds.

“Have you figured out your fuinjutsu style?” Shikako asks pointedly. She’s been teaching her students the basics, of course, but until they have their own epiphany, she can’t do much more than that. Yuu, however, is the furthest along of the three and eager to advance further.

“No.” He pouts, and Shikako has to fight the urge to audibly coo.

“Let’s try again,” she says encouragingly. “This time we’ll prioritize having necessities easily accessible and if there’s anything extra that you want to bring that aren’t necessities, we can put it in a labeled scroll.”

“Just one?” Yuu asks, focusing on the wrong thing entirely.

“You’re lucky Sensei is letting you bring any junk with you. It’s a mission not a party,” Jinichi says, deciding to get involved and far less diplomatically at that. Sono, eager for drama, gets another orange, wipes the dust off on her shirt, and just chomps directly into it, rind and all.

God, Shikako’s students are so strange.

“It’s not junk!” Yuu protests, put on the defensive. “Not everyone is as boring and unimaginative as you. I’m giving myself options in case we encounter problems that require creative solutions.”

“What, you’re going to throw oranges at an enemy?” Jinichi scoffs, crossing his arms, and Shikako can practically see the image of preteen Sasuke overlaid on top of him while a matching preteen Naruto does the same when Yuu scowls. Jinichi, spotting the advantage, continues, “At least Sono’s overpacking makes sense.”

Half-eaten orange in hand, Sono startles and awkwardly swallows. Annoyed, she says, “Do not involve me.” With that many kunai near her, it’s practically a warning.

“Okay, okay.” Shikako interferes before it escalates more than it already has. “Yuu, just one scroll. I will help you with it so it can hold more than the ones you have, but just one. And we need to make sure it has things you’ll actually need, okay? Jinichi, I appreciate you looking out for your teammates, but there’s more to missions than just fighting. And Sono…” Her final genin gives another horrendous, mutinous chomp of her orange. “Let’s see what we can do about all that.” Shikako waves vaguely in the direction of Sono’s weapons.

Obediently, but grudgingly, her students settle down to resume their task. It’s a good thing she gave them an extra day to prepare, otherwise this whole fight would be happening on the road or, worse, in Hidden Sand. She understands why tensions are high—this will be their first long term mission outside of the Land of Fire, and a B-rank at that—but hopefully it won’t be as bad as any of the away missions she went on as a genin.

Jinxes need not apply.

* * *

They’re surrounded.

Honestly, Kankurou isn’t exactly sure what he expected. It is Sparky, after all.

It’s not like he thought things were suddenly going to be boring around her—even though the war’s over and they’re adults now and the major villages are in an unprecedented level of peace and cooperation what with most of the kage trying to out-pacifist each other and really the only major threat is the occasional roving zombie—but he, like an idiot, thought maybe they’d be less of the life endangering kind of exciting and more the “what kind of shenanigans can Sparky get up to now that she’s responsible for three brats as weird as her.”

Not that he said so. Certainly not when he’d been saddled with a set of tiny wannabes of his own.

“Cute,” Sparky said with far less restraint and a pointed glance toward his training troupe when they met at the border of Wind and Rivers. They’re wearing the traditional double pointed hoods and the matching face paint of apprentice puppeteers. Kankurou is fully aware that, except for the colors of their paint, they look like mini color-coded replicas of himself from back when he’d been too young to know the trouble that comes with associating with damned Leaf nin.

“Don’t push it,” he warned. “Let’s just get everyone to Suna in one piece.”

Almost in unison, Sparky and her brats winced or exchanged wary, worried glances with each other. Leaf nin, Kankurou thought at the time. So superstitious.

But clearly they have a right to be when Sparky is so obviously cursed.

“Why does this always happen with you?” Kankurou sounds equal parts legitimately curious and exasperated. “Did you deface an entire cemetary’s worth of gravestones when you were a kid?” he asks even as he uses Karasu to pick up a kid and fling them away from an especially fast zombie. Given the angry screaming in response, it’s probably Green. “Maybe behead a guardian spirit’s statue? Wreck their shrine?” he continues listing, because seriously. Mega cursed.

Sparky glares in his direction. Behind her, Kankurou spots Red and one of the Leaf brats working together to fend off a pair of zombies. Ah, Red, he’s gonna have to learn the hard way: work with a Leaf nin once and all of a sudden, decades later, you’re facing a horde of zombies together and trapped in a friendship from which there is no escape.

“Well,” Sparky says dryly, “I did blow up that one temple when I was a teenager.” Almost on cue, an explosion goes off, enough percussive force to push back a section of the horde and kick up an obscuring cloud of dust. Kankurou takes that opportunity to gather all of the brats with Sanshouo and herd them toward the nearby cave system while Sparky takes up rearguard, earth walls and her nonsense fuinjutsu air barriers trailing them.

“You’re messing with me,” Kankurou accuses. She rolls her eyes. “I’m just saying, you had to have done something for your luck to be this bad. I could write an entire series about your life and I would be accused of making things needlessly dramatic.”

“You’re such a nerd,” she says instead of anything useful. She checks on her students and so, not to be outdone, he quickly checks on his own. Accustomed to but irritated with being bodily yanked around like or by puppets, his training troupe is fine, if a bit rattled by the zombies. They’ve only seen the one before, and Kankurou dispatched that before it got close.

Less accustomed to the puppets, but probably more familiar with ludicrous life threatening situations, her brats seem, if not bored, then resigned. Hiding in a cave from a horde of zombies is not the best first impression of Suna, sure, but Kankurou is fairly confident that they know this is at least fifty percent their teacher’s fault.

“Those won’t hold them off forever,” Sparky says, which is more useful but far less appreciated. “They’re tracking living energy, not chakra, so we won’t be able to stealth our way out of this.”

They’ll have to fight.

This many zombies isn’t that big of a problem for two shinobi of their caliber.

… Except their students are here. They can’t leave them undefended. But sending just one of them out to face all those undead doesn’t sit right with Kankurou, and he doesn’t even have the burden of being a Leaf nin obsessed with friendship and feelings.

“I have an idea,” Sparky says hesitantly, like any idea that doesn’t involve sending anyone to their death isn’t automatically the best idea, “but it’s a little weird.”

“Of course it is,” Kankurou says, because why wouldn’t it be?

Taking that as permission, Sparky pulls out a mask—horned and hideous, which is saying something considering Suna’s own history with Noh theatre—and puts it on.

“Honestly,” Kankurou mutters, even as he mentally takes notes. “So needlessly dramatic.”

* * *

The first time Shikako put on the Death God’s Mask was after sixty-eight hours of sleepless, fruitless researching and attempts to reverse engineer the Reaper Death Seal without causing horrible injury or, more likely, death for herself or anyone around her.

It was perhaps not her smartest decision ever. But given that neither she nor anyone else died, she considers it a win.

Sure, maybe she found out that she would have died had she been anyone else ( _little god, little god,_ but that had been so long ago). And sure, maybe she also found out she had accidentally completed an obscure ritual that maybe made her either the Summoner of Death or the Master of Death or—hopefully not, but increasingly likely—a God of Death, but ultimately nobody died, so… still a win.

(If she thinks about it too much, though, she wonders if maybe she actually did die. Where else could they have met but in purgatory?)

Regardless, the first time she put on the Death God’s Mask, she woke up with answers to her questions, a profound sense of denial, more questions, and an ally. Either that or she had an incredibly vivid dream which, given the sleep deprivation, isn’t outside the realm of possibility.

In any case, she woke up, took off the mask, turned it around in her hands, and looked at the face of what one Uzumaki long ago had imagined the God of Death to look like. Or perhaps that’s what he’d actually looked like back in those days. Perhaps that was the version of the God of Death that the Uzumaki had needed at the time.

(Or maybe that’s what the God of Death looks like when summoned by a human and not a fellow god— _hello, hello,_ so long ago—instead)

Then, she put it away—out of sight out of mind—and went about trying to figure out how to become a jounin sensei.

* * *

Despite what Kankurou says—and will say, in the future, performing the story and spreading her legend—it isn’t all that dramatic.

One moment, Sparky puts on the mask. The next, he appears. No glowing lights, no shaking earth, no impossible sound. Just there. Dark hair, green eyes, and a shimmering cloak.

Really, except for the cloak, Kankurou would think this is just some random Leaf chuunin Sparky had stashed away somehow the way she has all sorts of things hidden away, his appearance is that unobtrusive. In fact, he’s about to ask if that’s who he is, except Sparky says something. In a different language. And the being who has appeared, who Sparky has summoned, speaks back.

Kankurou feels chills.

The last time Kankurou heard Sparky speaking in a different language—not this new one, but still unknown—there were glowing lights, shaking earth, impossible sounds. She was dead, sword through the chest, then not. An inhuman being taking human form.

They speak, an unknowable exchange, and as Kankurou subtly checks with the Leaf brats yet another unsurprising but weird fact is made clear to him: this is the first time her students have seen this person, have heard her speak this strange language, have even seen the mask she’s currently wearing.

But not for long, as the being reaches for the mask, removing it from her face as if to say without words that he would prefer to see her instead. Or at least, that’s the way he’s going to phrase it later. After all, romance puts butts in seats.

Behind Kankurou, Yellow—normally the most well behaved of his training troupe and thus the least promising—gives a small, almost dreamy sigh. Perhaps there’s a future in the theatrical arts for that one after all.

The being goes on to remove his shimmering cloak, draping it in her arms, before donning the mask himself.

“Here,” Sparky says, finally understandable. Linguistically, at least, because then she throws the cloak at him, ruining the mystical mood. “Get the kids under this, it’ll keep them hidden from the undead. We’ll—”

“Let me guess,” Kankurou says, far more nonchalant than he actually feels, “You and whoever this is will go deal with the zombies in an over the top dramatic way, and I’m on babysitting duty.” He ignores the protests from the brats.

The uncomfortable expression on Sparky’s face is enough of a response.

“Hey, less chance of me dying,” he says with a shrug, putting that familiar look of fond exasperation on her face instead. Better. “But when I retell this, it will have a dashing last minute save from yours truly.”

Sparky rolls her eyes, even better, before telling her brats, “Until I come back, he’s in charge, so listen to him.” It is a little alarming that she had to specify what should be an obvious chain of command. After making sure all six kids are beneath the cloak, vanishing them from sight—he would’ve appreciated a heads up—she and the masked being depart for the mouth of the cave.

“We’re at least going to watch, right?” one of the Leaf brats asks, swiftly answering one of Kankurou’s questions. Invisible clearly doesn’t mean silent.

“Of course,” Green answers imperiously. “Shishou would never pass up an opportunity to witness something like this. How would we grow as artists?”

Gods, was he that embarrassing as an apprentice?

“Only if you all stay quiet,” he says. It’s a lost cause, especially if the Leaf brats are anything like his or, no doubt, worse considering whose students they are. “And we’re not leaving the caves until those zombies are dealt with. Got it?” He’s not exactly sure where to aim the stern look, but he gets some reluctant agreements anyway.

As they belatedly follow after Sparky and her partner, Yellow gives one last little sigh, muttering, “It would’ve been better if he draped it over her shoulders and pulled the hood up. Like a bridal veil.” The other brats shush him. It certainly doesn’t help with the noise, but Kankurou decides to let it pass. Yellow clearly has the instinct for dramatic storytelling and what kind of teacher would he be if he stifled that kind of potential?

But he does have dibs on this one. After all, he can’t have some kid messing up the legend of Shikabane-hime and the Shinigami.

* * *

After the battle, zombies reduced to nothing more than empty corpses on the ground or disintegrated into dust and ash entirely, Shikako turns back to the cave system and finds Kankurou far closer to the entrance than she’d prefer.

And if he’s closer, that must mean they’re closer, too.

She sighs.

“They’re safe,” says the Master of Death, the snarling mask only muffling his voice somewhat and absolutely failing to hide the sheen of his eyes. They’re aimed at a particular spot—again, far closer to the battle than Shikako would consider ideal—and though she couldn’t sense chakra or that nebulous life energy which sometimes, but decreasingly so, eludes her, it doesn’t take much to guess that’s where the students are.

“I thought your Cloak was meant to hide them from Death?” she asks, more curious than skeptical. She certainly won’t be doubting his abilities any time soon, not with how efficiently he dealt with his share of the zombies.

“Eh,” he responds, an almost clumsy, awkward sound from what is effectively a god. Less like the Master of Death and more like a human named Harry Potter. “Somewhat. It keeps the wearer safe from death, makes them invisible, protects them from the undead.”

Shikako supposes that makes sense. Six young shinobi should have been irresistible to the zombies, that much life energy practically a beacon. The fact that the zombies were focused on the battle instead means the cloak did its job.

“Although the change in size is new. Before, it only barely fit three of us, much less six,” Harry mutters, drawing the Death God’s Mask up and to the side of his own face, a strange juxtaposition: the entirely alive human seeming face, and the artificial attempt to depict a god.

Speaking of, as she walks toward the point where the students presumably stand, she can hear the shuffling of feet and low murmurings of genin who really should try to be stealthier, never mind the threat is over. Reaching out, she grips invisible fabric and yanks.

Immediately her students point fingers at each other, variations of “It wasn’t my idea!” tumbling out of their mouths. In contrast, Kankurou’s students—all of them, frankly, adorable in their matching outfits—huddle closer together, whispering, gazes going from her to the not-entirely-human being trailing behind her.

She drapes the Invisibility Cloak over her arm—the length of it somehow smaller than it was mere moments before—and returns to where Harry stands a distance away, perhaps out of politeness but, if she’s reading him right, more likely out of that earlier awkwardness which ill fits his status, but makes him far more approachable.

“Thank you for your help, and for this,” she says, the cloak reverted back to that ethereal shimmering she first saw him in all those months ago in that empty place beyond her dreams. She holds it out to him.

For a moment, he does nothing: simply stares at the cloak, silent, before one hand reaches up for the snarling, demonic mask, askew, but firmly upon his head.

“The contract is not yet complete,” he says. And this—this voice, this tone, these words—is not Harry Potter, the somewhat awkward once human, but the Master of Death, holder of the Hallows and the powers that come with it.

And something within Shikako—the part of her that knows what death and the world beyond this one entails, the part that can summon a Death God without sacrificing something first, the part that can meet the Master of Death as an equal _(hello little god)_ —stands at attention.

“Consider it collateral,” he says with a dip of his head, both faces, it seems, in agreement. “Or an exchange,” he continues. Against his words, he takes the cloak in hand—the draw and drag of it over her arm smooth like silk—before, in a fluid motion, he throws it over her shoulders.

Behind her, she hears Kankurou and his little troupe break out into more whispering.

Harry—hands hesitant, which is how Shikako can tell the difference—pulls the hood of the cloak up for her as well. “I will stay in your world until it is rid of the undead,” he says, and this could be either Harry or the Master of Death. “And in the meantime, this cloak will keep you and those you care about safe.”

That...

It’s not a bad deal, certainly. Except for summoning him—or reverse summoning herself to him, she supposes—Shikako couldn’t figure out what the Death God’s Mask was meant to do. The Invisibility Cloak, in contrast, has proven itself far more practical, especially in situations involving zombies. Given the way they avoided him during the battle, it’s not as if Harry needs it. And, well, she did ask him to help her get rid of the zombies. She hadn’t specified those particular zombies only. If he wants to expand her words to mean all the zombies, she certainly doesn’t have a problem with that. Although why…

“This lets you stay here,” she concludes, eyes on the Death God’s Mask. She’s not entirely sure if she means the mask or the contract or if perhaps one has become the physical manifestation of the other. “So you don’t have to go back to…” that empty, endless purgatory where they first met.

Harry smiles, a little wry, “This lets me stay here,” he agrees easily, “But I think now that I’ve left there, I can go to other worlds where Death is and is needed.”

How ominous. Yet Shikako feels relieved. “I’d appreciate your help for as long as you are willing to give it. I welcome you to this world for as long as you’d like to stay.”

And Shikako smiles back.

* * *

* * *

* * *

Gaara doesn’t ignore the report, nor does he forget about it, he just doesn’t look at it for a few days. It’s not a particularly high priority even if the people involved are his own brother, Shikako Nara, and both of their students participating in the inter-village training program.

He saw them when they first arrived in Suna two days later than expected, which was a little concerning but not too unusual given the sand storms that reigned over the desert. When Gaara greeted them, in both an official capacity as Kazekage and as himself, fondness apparent, they were all in good health if a little tired upon arrival. Kankurou made some jokes, Shikako bantered back, and Gaara let them go so that they and their students could rest after their travels. Again, not too unusual.

Nothing in all that suggested a horde of zombies wandering around the main route between Suna and Rivers.

So when he finally does get to that report a few days later, it shouldn’t be a surprise that he immediately goes to Kankurou and wakes him up with a hard shove of sand. Yes, it’s the middle of the night. Normally, Gaara doesn’t begrudge his brother his sleep, but considering that same brother let the Kazekage walk around unaware of a major threat in his country, he thinks he’s justified.

“What the hell, Gaara?” Kankurou complains. Gaara doesn’t know why, he landed on his feet and everything.

“There were zombies in Wind,” he says.

“Uh, yeah, and Sparky and her beau took care of it,” Kankurou responds nonchalantly, like that’s not part of the problem.

“And you didn’t think to say anything to me earlier?” Gaara asks, flat and deeply unimpressed. Yes, he’s glad his siblings are no longer afraid of him, but is a little professionalism too hard to ask for?

“It’s in the report!”

“And where is Shikako’s… beau now?” There certainly hadn’t been any additions when the group arrived days ago and no unaccounted travelers to Suna since then.

“I don’t know,” Kankurou says with a dismissive shrug, yelping when another wave of sand surges impatiently against his shin. “Sparky said he wasn’t a threat to anyone but zombies, and even if I could talk to him, I wasn’t exactly going to ask the Shinigami about his travel itinerary!”

Shinigami?

“You’re not exaggerating, are you?” Gaara asks suspiciously. Ever since Kankurou became head of the Puppet Corps, he’s pushed for more theatrics in both his own and the corps’ performances. Gaara won’t argue against the boost in Suna’s reputation and, well, it makes his brother happy.

But this is what makes Kankurou scowl, “It wasn’t some jumped up chuunin, if that’s what you’re asking. I was there when she summoned him. I felt it. It was like at the Garden, like what happened with Sparky but controlled. Steadier. And everyone knows that Leaf has a thing with the Shinigami.” 

Everyone does know Leaf has a thing with the Shinigami. After all, the only times the Shinigami has been summoned in recent history have all been by Leaf or former Leaf nin. But for Kankurou to claim that something felt like that—like Gelel, like a god, and not just a very powerful being...

Of the three siblings, Kankurou has the best chakra control. Which makes sense given his chosen path. It doesn’t necessarily translate to chakra sensing, but still. On top of that, having grown up with Gaara for most of his life, if Gaara were to trust anyone to understand the nuances between a powerful shinobi, a jinchuuriki, and a, well, a god, it would be his brother.

And maybe Shikako Nara, but that’s probably not the best idea right now.

“And he just left?” Gaara asks, because a Shinigami wandering around in Land of Wind is not any less alarming than a horde of zombies.

“Sparky said he was under contract? I don’t know, fuinjutsu users are weird,” Kankurou answers, dropping back into his bed. Almost reassuringly, he adds, “But, look, last time we dealt with a god, it turned the Dead Wastes into an oasis and Sparky vouched for that one, too, so I say let’s not worry about it. And let me go to sleep.”

And then he does. As if Gaara is only his annoying little brother and not literally the Kazekage.

Although, bringing up the Garden does give him an idea.

* * *

Unsurprisingly, Bitey picks up puppeteering nearly as quickly as he does fuinjutsu, Punchy’s chakra control makes him what Kankurou calls a “passable stage hand,” and Stabby has decided to take the concept of puppetry and turn it on its proverbial head.

“You’re supposed to control the puppet, not let the puppet control you!” Kankurou shouts while Sono flagrantly ignores him, using her practice puppet as a counterweight to fling herself up into the rafters of the theater.

Shikako’s own lessons with Kankurou’s are only technically calmer.

“But how do you prevent the explosion from destroying the seal?” the genin who Shikako only knows as Green asks. Unlike Kankurou, Shikako introduced her students with their actual names; his students only got colors. If they felt in any way upset about it, they hid it admirably. Although, does that mean at some point in the past Kankurou went by Purple?

“Generally you don’t,” Shikako answers, considering. “Konoha fuinjutsu is mostly done on paper, so we prioritize the power of the seal over the longevity. Although there are exceptions to that,” she says, thinking of Kisuke Maboroshi’s whole... situation. “But when it comes to explosions, the point is usually complete destruction.”

Red hugs his puppet and manipulates the arms to hug him in return, trying to find comfort, like an Inuzuka cuddling with their ninken partner. Given they were discussing ways to incorporate fuinjutsu onto their puppets, it’s a reasonable reaction. Shikako was mostly thinking about storage and barriers, but apparently Green has bigger and more explosive goals in mind.

“My family has an heirloom mantle,” Yellow offers quietly. “It’s been in our family for generations, but we don’t use it unless there’s an emergency because it’s fragile.”

Green and Red make impressed noises, which tells Shikako this is not an ordinary piece of clothing. Obviously. Back when she was a genin doing research on all types of fuinjutsu, she had found a little on Sand’s traditional style: largely textile based, passed from mother to daughter. That in combination with their puppetry and cloth binding jutsu had made Sand’s shinobi a fearsome force, almost more so than their penchant for poisons or the Magnet Release, restricted to a bloodline as it was. But that fuinjutsu style waned as time went on—whether from cost, both time and money, or breaks in the teaching chain—and now it seems like the only things left of it are the rare, surviving heirlooms.

“Check with your family first,” Shikako begins, because she does not want to be accused of stealing clan secrets, “and if they say okay, maybe you can bring a sketch of it? And we can analyze it together as part of our lessons.”

Yellow nods, blushing and shy, while Red nudges him encouragingly. Green barrels ahead. “Okay, but what about if I put an explosion seal on a metal projectile and then Dobato launches it. Can we make sure it doesn’t activate when it’s with Dobato, as well as make sure that when the seal does explode, it also causes metal shrapnel?” Dobato being Green’s puppet. Why the puppets have names, but not the genin is still baffling to her. “Because my sister’s in the Engineering Department and she made these canisters that are supposed to hold and disperse gas on a delay, but if we can do that with explosions…”

Shikako thinks about it. This is the kind of technological ingenuity that has allowed Suna to keep up even with their traditional fuinjutsu style having practically gone extinct. “I suppose it depends on how the delay is controlled—”

“Oi, Sparky!” Kankurou calls from the front of the theater next to someone in a uniform which Shikako’s come to recognize as the Tower’s administrative department. “We’ve got a reassignment from the Kazekage himself.” Shikako’s students, safely on the ground, look at her with almost resigned expectation. Honestly, being on a mission and having a stretch of five days without some kind of catastrophe is a little unusual. Although, she’d think that encountering a heretofore unseen amount of zombies at the beginning of their trip would be exciting enough.

She can have calm missions! She’s done it before surely?

“Where to?” she asks, excusing herself from the cluster of Kankurou’s apprentices. They observe attentively nonetheless. When she’s close enough, Kankurou tosses the scroll her way.

“The Garden of Life from Death.”

* * *

The events of that mission are still considered S-rank. On Konoha’s side, that is.

In Wind, it’s pretty much a matter of public information. Not everything, of course, but it’s fairly difficult to hide a giant oasis that replaced a notorious death trap overnight. Especially when those in power want to use said giant oasis as a means to increase their country’s flagging tourism and economy.

On top of that, because Gaara believes in being an honorable Kazekage, he attributed the appearance of the Garden to Shikako. After all, in a way, it is named after her, the Garden of Life from Death. She who died, then was resurrected, raising a verdant sanctuary in a place where nothing could survive. And so all of Sand, if not all of Wind, for good or for ill, know that she’s the one responsible.

On hearing that, her students look at her with varying amounts of skepticism, confusion, and for some reason exasperation.

“I don’t know, Sensei,” Jinichi says, looking around at the jungle growth with wary eyes. It’s a sharp contrast from the desert they just traveled through, the trees and greenery more in line with what a Konoha boy would be used to, but perhaps that’s what has him on edge. The environs so similar to and yet distinctly not home. “It’s not really your style.”

“Oh?” Shikako asks, following her students as they follow Gaara on the trail. Kankurou and his students went ahead, declining the scenic view. “And what’s my style?”

Jinichi turns to her, as if that question is an insult to his intelligence. Further along, Sono and Yuu both stop, miming a complex choreography of explosions and screaming and general chaos. Clearly they’ve learned more from Kankurou than just puppetry.

Jinichi, ever the stoic, shrugs. “Large scale destruction? Social revolution? Self-injury?”

Shikako winces. As a genin, she always wondered why Kakashi was so reckless and self-sacrificial. While she doesn’t think she’ll ever reach his level of casual self-disregard, she kind of understands it now. Having students with a penchant for risky behavior means she has more reason to throw herself in danger.

Gaara, the honorable traitor, elaborates. “She did fend off a despotic mad man and temporarily die,” he says, to the wide eyed, eager fascination of her students. “This whole area used to be a series of caves and mines, most of which have either collapsed or become part of the healing springs system. I prefer its new iteration.” 

Yuu pipes in, “You died?!” completely missing the last part. He backtracks to her as if he could do anything about it over a decade later. Jinichi, too, gives her the same pinched look of concern that Shikako recognizes when her teammates or brother or any of her friends find out she discharged herself from the hospital earlier than medically recommended. 

Sono likewise crowds close, poking her arm. “You don’t look like a zombie,” she says, simply.

“That’s because I’m not,” Shikako responds, trying to urge them onwards. Reluctantly, they move, though she thinks it has more to do with the fact Gaara is present. Not even because it’s the Kazekage himself guiding them and he probably has more important things to do with his time, but because her team don’t like being emotionally vulnerable around other people.

She gets it.

“I didn’t really die,” she assures her students, only kind of lying. The fact that they all immediately turn to Gaara for confirmation is honestly unsurprising, but still a little annoying.

“She got stabbed through the chest with an entire sword,” he says like the absolute traitor he is.

If anything, though, that seems to put her students at ease.

“Oh, that,” Sono says, immediately bored.

“She does that all the time,” Yuu adds, dismissive, as if it were merely a harmless personality quirk.

Jinichi gives her another look, assessing, before shrugging and returning to the path.

Over their heads, Gaara meets her eyes, incredulous. Shikako shrugs in response. They’re young, don’t quite understand the timeline of her abilities—and why would they? It’s practically one of her signature moves. As far as they know she’s always been able to withstand a sword to the chest. How could they possibly know that it’s only because she nearly died (did die?) that first time and was resurrected by Gelel that she can do it now?

Her connection to Gelel is why she can turn lethal blows into something easily shrugged off, something to be used to her advantage. Her connection to Gelel is what turned the Dead Wastes into the Garden. Her connection to Gelel is how she survived the impossible again and again _(hello little god)_. Her connection to Gelel is how she knows—before the rumbling of the earth, before the swaying of the trees, before the shifting of the sands and with it Gaara’s reflexive platform lifting all of them off the ground—that something is wrong.

Something is wrong in the Garden. Something is wrong with Gelel.

* * *

It could be argued that what ended the war wasn’t military supremacy or diplomatic negotiations or even a sunny-eyed, charismatic optimist with near godly powers and a dream of world peace. No, it could be argued that what ended the war—or, at least, the war of international shinobi conflict—was the appearance of zombies.

After all, when faced with a greater threat, not only to their respective villages, but to the laws of nature itself, there was no other viable decision than to cooperate in order to protect humanity as a whole. 

And for a while, that worked. Taking out the undead warriors raised by Edo Tensei gave former enemies a reason to band together. To battle beside each other instead of against each other, to share intel and sometimes, rarely, share techniques. For a while, the Elemental Nations were united towards a common goal.

Until matters, like the zombies, began to change.

Edo Tensei is targeted, deliberate. It requires a summoner, a sacrifice, and a specific soul to raise. The obvious origin of the undead raised by Edo Tensei made victory a clear, if not easily attainable objective. Find the summoner, kill the summoner, end the technique. Destroy any zombies that remain.

Except, as the first three were achieved, it became more and more apparent that Edo Tensei was not the only source of the zombies. That the undead being raised were not targeted or deliberate, were not always powerful warriors in life. Just random, mindless bodies suddenly wandering the lands, seeking to consume the living. And no matter how many were destroyed, others would emerge, endless. 

No technique. No summoner. No origin.

And so without that unifying goal, the great alliance changed.

It wasn’t immediate, for there remained a shared threat and even the most historical and sociopolitical grudges can seem petty when faced with the undead, but as the existence of zombies became the new status quo, shinobi were less willing to risk themselves for former enemies when they could focus on safeguarding their respective homelands instead. These zombies were not a centralized force, and so grand battles became mere skirmishes. The sharing of intel and techniques varied, the traditional lines of alliance holding true and even expounding on it—multinational patrol routes and inter-village training programs amongst them—but there was less urgency and so less incentive over all.

Which is why Shikako has kept her hypothesis a secret. That and, until she can test it and be sure, it would surely cause panic without a solution. Of course those aren’t the only reasons she hasn’t said anything.

... Because there might not be a technique and there might not be a summoner, but there definitely is an origin. And last time Shikako faced it, she was the only one left. _(hello)_

* * *

Something is wrong with the Garden.

Gaara knows this after Shikako, but early enough to lift all of them off the ground with a platform made of sand.

The trees sway, and the earth rumbles, and this is not the showing of peace and stability that he wanted to present to Shikako and her students. A part of him—and he’s not sure which part, to be honest: the part that is Kazekage and must run through all of the possibilities or the part that remembers being a teenage boy watching one of his first friends die in front of him before she became a glowing, impossible being capable of soothing the bijuu inside him—wonders if this is a result of Shikako, the last remnant of Gelel, returning to the Garden. Inevitable. But he dismisses the thought soon enough. She was reacting to the change, not the cause of it.

“Something is wrong with Gelel,” Shikako says, eyes unerringly trained to the center of the Garden. From their new aerial view, it’s easy to see the point from where everything bloomed. Shikako closes her eyes, concentrating; after all, chakra sensors don’t need sight.

Gaara doesn’t have that option. His eyes seek out the other people within the Garden: Suna nin and researchers and tourists, all of them his people so long as they are under his protection. They need to be evacuated.

There are plans for various emergencies that the head of the outpost would know to begin immediately. With Kankurou and his team already checked in, there should be more than enough personnel to get everyone evacuated. Though those plans were geared more toward fire and sand storms, zombie incursions, not the Garden itself going wild.

He needs to help.

“I need to help,” Shikako says, eyes opening, earnest and concerned. Somehow Gaara knows they are speaking of different things. “They sound—someone’s trying to do something, but I can’t—I don’t understand them from here. I need to get closer.” But she hesitates, and her students pick up on that.

“Both of you owe me lunch,” the genin named Yuu Morihiro says to his teammates, a complete non sequitur that somehow has the other genin rolling their eyes at him instead of being confused. “I’m a genjutsu and hopefully one day fuinjutsu specialist,” he says, this time to Gaara, “But I can also make up to three kage bunshin.”

“Shurikenjutsu and ninjutsu, primarily lightning and shunshin,” offers Sono; just Sono according to the paperwork Gaara read weeks ago.

“Taijutsu and medical jutsu, so I’m probably of most use at the shelter camp if we get to that point,” Jinichi Kareino adds, “though I also have some sensing ability.” The spiel is quick, almost rehearsed, all three of them relaying their relevant skills to Gaara so that he can deploy them efficiently. Aware of their strengths and limitations, knowing their teacher is about to do something reckless and completely out of their capabilities and so they make it clear that they will do their part while also staying relatively safe.

Then, turning to Shikako, Jinichi Kareino says, “See, this is more your style, Sensei.”

She smiles, relieved, as if given permission to do her next stunt. She reaches out to each of them, fast, fond pats to their head and shoulders—affection given and received freely—before leaping from the sand platform down to the center of the Garden..

“Rule number one, Sensei!” Yuu Morihiro calls down after her. Shikako looks up briefly enough to send a thumbs up back before focusing entirely on the chaos below.

“Can we do that too?” Sono asks Gaara, which is just… no.

“Speak for yourself,” Jinichi Kareino answers first.

Gaara is about to say something before he is cut off. “Come on!” Yuu Morihiro interrupts, “We can’t let sensei get all the glory!”

It’s very much a preview for Gaara’s time with them. As a team, they are efficient and serious with their efforts to help locate and evacuate the civilians within the Garden. They also barely let him get a word in edgewise and only when it’s pertinent to the mission. Otherwise they keep bantering with each other the whole time. But through it all there is practiced cooperation, trust, and affection, signs that they are more than just Leaf nin. They are Shikako’s students.

The outpost commander flags Gaara down as he drops off the last group of civilians to the crowded shelter camp, hastily assembled a distance from the Garden’s perimeter. Close enough for line of sight, but far enough that earth tremors are absorbed by the desert sand. A layer of it is imbued with his own chakra just in case he needs to construct defensive walls or lift the entire thing up into the sky.

“Kazekage-sama,” the jounin Saishin says, “one of my chuunin has reported that two researchers are unaccounted for. Given their topic was geology, it’s likely they were close to the epicenter.”

A particularly loud and worrying rumble of the earth punctuates the statement, the Garden’s trees practically roiling with it. Suddenly, a beam of light shoots upward, visible even in the bright, cloudless sky. If Gaara were to guess where it came from—

“Bet you that’s Sensei,” Sono says.

“No bet,” Yuu Morihiro responds.

“Two lunches and the next volume of Celestial Guardians?” Jinichi Kareino asks.

Sono hums, considering the offer.

—but all levity is quickly extinguished when, beneath the Garden’s jungle canopy, glowing, humanoid shapes appear.

* * *

It is a scene from her nightmares.

Or, well, it closely resembles a scene from a particular nightmare put in the setting of a different nightmare entirely that she wonders if this fusion will now be its own fun new nightmare.

Hooray.

But the worst of it is how little it seems she’s grown since then, brought to her knees by the sound of Gelel, distressed and cacophonous instead of welcoming and encompassing. In front of her, a man dead and cut open, blood and viscera an expanding pool of crimson on the dais, all that remains of the shrine from long ago. And standing above them, between them, another man, eyes crazed, Gelel’s heart stone in hand, the bloody symbol of Jashin self drawn on his forehead.

She just needs a weapon stabbed through her, and the picture would be complete.

Gelel screams, a wordless, atonal thing and she knows it’s not really sound, but she clutches at her ears anyway, feeling it reverberate through her being. She can’t understand them. She is trying desperately to speak to them but to no avail. The ground around them shudders. Branches and roots of the Garden’s trees thrash wildly, adding a novel detail that will surely feature heavily in her future nightmares should she survive all this. The dappled sunlight through the jungle canopy is almost mocking her.

The Jashinist reaches for her, Gelel’s heart stone within his clenched fist, and they scream once more. Stone hands and tree roots grasp for her, but for all that she feels like a helpless teenager again, she isn’t one. Reflex has her dodging out of the way, though it feels sluggish and inefficient. She is afraid to go into her shadow form, that which was gifted to her from her own Gelel stone (would objects also imbued with Gelel’s energy not pass through her?) and so she does it the old-fashioned, human way.

She highly doubts her own earth jutsu will work, and with the glow of Gelel on him—tainted and warped it may be—her shadows are likely to be rebuffed as well. So she brings out her lightsaber, just like all those years ago. The Sword of the Thunder God, beholden to neither Gelel or Jashin and so, she hopes, capable of facing an abominable combination of both. She swings, sending an arc of lightning towards the Jashinist. He absorbs it with a stone pillar, easy.

That’s fine. She isn’t trying to hit him anyway.

She draws closer, dodging and weaving, throwing lightning bolts every so often to keep him distracted. Gelel continues to scream, incomprehensible. Had the man been a shinobi and not a civilian, this might be more tiring than it already is, practically impossible. She reaches out and the Jashinist pulls back, Gelel’s heart stone firmly within his grasp.

Still not what she’s aiming for.

She reaches out, Sword of the Thunder God in hand, and stabs it into the pedestal where Gelel’s heart stone normally rests. At her feet, she meets the blank stare of the dead man before she quickly shuts her eyes.

The clearing fills with blinding light. The Jashinist screams, his hand a mess of blood and shattered stone. And Gelel…

Gelel howls.

* * *

When Shikako had been part of Gelel, one of thousands of stars, she knew everything they knew. Felt everything they felt. The song they sang which had been so overwhelming in her human form was something she could have gladly joined: peace and belonging and unending light. This was a god made of human ingenuity and impossibility, millennia before the Sage of Six Paths ever walked the land.

But it was a god that, like many other gods Shikako had the dubious honor of meeting, only acted when death was involved.

Her own, of course, a prime example, but even then, even before her, the Dead Wastes took no prisoners. Slow, yes, and overt, but Gelel fed on the life energy of those who had wandered into its territory, sustaining itself long after its empire had declined and left.

And after all those years, all that life energy—less than a fraction of it needed for the Garden and the healing spring waters—is still there, ready, waiting. More than an entire village of life energy, more than centuries of a runic pathway paved over by loyal monks. This is a sacrifice capable of summoning Jashin.

Or so thought one shitty Jashinist.

Shikako huffs, slapping a knockout tag on the already unconscious body of said shitty Jashinist and binding him with wire just in case. While she would love to do worse (surely he deserves it) she refrains. This isn’t about what she wants, it’s about what Gelel wants. And Gelel has already seen enough bloodshed today.

She goes to the dead man, eyes blankly unseeing at the sky. Shikako doesn’t recognize him. He doesn’t look at all like Aoba. She’s sorry he died for such a stupid, awful reason. She does her best to... gather him up, for lack of a batter term, before sealing his body away in a black banded scroll. His blood dries, tacky, on the dais.

The earth, at least, has settled, as have the trees, although they hang overhead far more ominously than they did merely an hour ago.

Gelel is eerily quiet.

She can still sense them, she thinks, but they are dissonant, disparate. No longer the conglomeration that she knows them as.

They also slowly seem to be getting louder. As if they are distant and creeping towards her.

Somehow, probably because her life is just like this, she’s not entirely surprised to spot amongst the trees glowing humanoid shapes drawing ever closer.

_(hello again)_

* * *

Gaara remains cautious even as the shapes retreat, going further into the Garden rather than out to the shelter camp. He remains cautious even as the earth stops rumbling and the trees stop swaying. He remains cautious even as everything goes silent.

So how he misses the appearance of the being Kankurou tentatively identified as the Shinigami is a mystery. But, considering this is a supposed god, maybe not too mysterious.

He turns to Gaara, eyes a poisonous, laughing green behind the snarling, demonic mask, and asks a question.

… Or, at least, Gaara thinks it’s a question. He can’t understand the words.

The Shinigami asks a different question. This time, at least, Gaara can recognize Shikako’s name.

“Shikako’s in there,” he answers, or tries to as best he can, gesturing toward the now eerie and ominous jungle that is the Garden.

The Shinigami reaches toward him, ring glinting on his finger, and Gaara doesn’t flinch, but he does, ever cautious, tense up in response. The sand beneath their feet shifts warily, warningly.

But the Shinigami’s hand stops in the empty space in front of Gaara, and after a moment he says, words completely comprehensible, “Sorry about that.” He pulls up his mask, eyes no less inhuman but now in a more human-seeming face, and gives an almost apologetic smile.

“You!” cuts in Sono imperiously, emerging from the crowd. Behind her, unsurprisingly, follow her teammates. “You’re that guy Sensei summoned!”

“Wow, thanks,” the Shinigami says, amused. It leaves Gaara baffled, but Shikako’s students barrel on.

“Sensei went in there, but except for that huge beam of light, there haven’t been any kind of explosions. So either she’s already fixed everything or she might be in trouble,” Yuu Morihiro summarizes, simplified but accurate.

“She left this with us,” Jinichi Kareino says, holding out a shimmering stretch of fabric.

For a moment, Gaara wonders if it is one of Suna’s specimens of fuinjutsu miraculously preserved, but on closer look there are no patterns to the cloth, just the strange sheen that has nothing to do with reflecting the sun.

The Shinigami takes it and sighs. “Well, I did tell her she could use it to keep those she cared for safe. I was hoping she’d keep it with her, though. It’d make things easier.”

“Sensei isn’t really one for making things easy,” Yuu Morihiro says, exchanging banter with a god as easily as he would his team.

“Yeah, it’s not her style,” Sono adds, elbow nudging Jinichi Kareino, who rolls his eyes good naturedly.

“I’d have never guessed,” the Shinigami says dryly, to which Shikako’s students appear to brighten. 

“Do you need help looking for her?” Jinichi Kareino offers, eyes narrowed at the Garden. It’s unfamiliar terrain, already proven to be hazardous, but Gaara thinks he would find his sensei’s chakra signature anywhere.

“No, thank you. I have an idea of where she is,” the Shinigami turns toward the Garden as well, sights aimed directly at the center despite all the foliage. “In the middle of all the trouble, right?”

Her students grin in response and before he leaves—disappeared as quickly and silently as he arrived—the Shinigami smiles back.

* * *

The disparate pieces of Gelel arrive independently of one another, as individual in actions as they have become in their manifestations. For all that the glowing shapes of them are indistinct, humanoid without much in the way of details, their personalities shine through.

Pun only slightly intended.

Some of them gather around the dais, either looking curiously at the lightsaber stabbed into the pedestal or crouched mournfully over the blood staining the stone. Some kick intangibly at the Jashinist. Others attempt to grasp at his injured hand. Some—most, really—surround her, reaching out.

Their hands pass through, futile.

The sounds she hears from Gelel could only loosely be considered a song, nothing unified or in harmony. An entire orchestra playing whatever they please, no conductor in sight.

She tries to understand them, but to no avail. Even when she activates her own Gelel given form, a shadow as ephemeral as their light, they cannot touch. Cannot connect. She was once a part of them, but she turned back, and so their language is lost to her.

More manifestations arrive, crowding now, the volume of the noise louder. Not quite deafening—after all, the danger has passed—and far from malicious, but they continue to reach for her desperately, yearning for contact, and their movements and sounds become more frenzied at the lack.

It is beginning to be overwhelming.

Shikako tries, she does. She pulls out what fragments she can of Gelel’s heart stone, gathers them together, and cleans them. She retrieves her lightsaber and puts the shards in its place on the pedestal.

Other than curiously following her, individual songs reacting to her movements, there is no change. She brings out her own Gelel stone pendant, kept near even though she hasn’t needed it to access her shadow form in years, and adds it to the pile. She channels chakra through it, through the shards, through the pedestal. The noises flutter and flow, but remain incomprehensible to her.

The cacophony and her frustration increases.

This is how Harry finds them.

The manifestations give him a wide berth (out of fear? Respect? A mix of both? She can’t tell) and as he draws nearer to her it is a welcome reprieve, their sounds ebbing into something more manageable.

He wears the mask still, though up and askew and more like a headband so that she can see his wry expression as he holds out the cloak to her.

“They’re okay?” she asks, hand resting on the smooth fabric. She doesn’t need to clarify who they are. If Harry has the cloak, he’s seen her students.

“Yes, they’re all fine,” he assures her. “They’re not the one getting mobbed by ghosts.” When she does nothing but sigh in relief, he brings her attention back to the cloak. “Wear it.”

“I don’t need to be kept safe from them,” she says. “They’re not a danger to me. Not to anyone, I think.”

“It’ll give you some breathing room, at least,” he says. At her continued reluctance, Harry adds, eyebrow raised, “I can put it on for you again if you’d like.”

Hastily, Shikako pulls it around her shoulders, fabric shimmering, and the manifestations of Gelel do back off a little. Not the entire radius of what they give Harry, but no longer trying to touch her. Their sounds fluctuate, though the meanings remain lost.

“I can’t understand them anymore,” she says. Now that the frustration and desperation are gone, she realizes how legitimately mournful she is about the loss. She was once a part of them. Shikako belonged, once. But now they are fractured, and if she cannot figure out how to help them, then they have all lost that belonging.

“I even tried this,” she continues, picking up her Gelel stone pendant. Although, given its lack of effectiveness here, maybe that name is wrong. It’s not a Gelel stone. It’s a Shikako stone.

Harry eyes it for a moment, a smile curling gently onto his face, before he takes off the ring on his finger. He holds it out to her. “Shall we do another trade?”

“What?” she asks, baffled, “Why?”

“It’s a problem of communication, right?” Harry asks. “The Resurrection Stone doesn’t actually bring the dead back to life, but it does let you speak to them.”

The sounds of Gelel bubble up, excited maybe.

“Why don’t you just use it?” Shikako asks, though her hand is already offering up her pendant in exchange.

“I’m not the one they want to speak to,” he says as if it’s that simple.

Maybe it is. She wants to speak to them, too.

He gives her the ring—thankfully doesn’t put it on for her—and takes her pendant in exchange. When she slips it on her finger, the sounds of Gelel surge. For a moment, she is disappointed (it didn’t work, it’s still just noise) but one of the manifestations touches her, and suddenly she hears—

“She’s returned!”

“Our fallen star.”

“She’s not fallen, look how she’s risen!”

“How does she know the God of Death?”

“She’s grown so much.”

“She freed us again.”

“How dare a Jashinist come here.”

“She came back for us.”

“That poor man.”

“Can she send us onward?”

“Wait!” Shikako says, trying to parse through their voices. They are eager and curious, joyful and mourning, pleased and proud and protective, different personalities. And as she wears the ring for longer, she begins to see the details of the manifestations, faces and features that make them people and not just pieces of a god.

They hush, waiting for her, their returned star.

She looks at the one who asked that last question. “You want to be sent onward?”

Some of them nod. Some of them smile. Some of them look away guiltily.

“We’ve been here a long time,” that manifestation says. “Longer than we deserved.”

“We’ll leave the life energy, imbue it into the Garden properly to protect it,” another one continues.

“It wasn’t ours to begin with, and this way nobody—” And several of them shoot glares over to the unconscious Jashinist. One continues trying to kick him, never mind the futility. “—can use it to harm people.”

“But it’s time for us to go, sister,” and the manifestation that says that smiles at her shocked expression. The pieces of Gelel do not think of themselves as such; when all is well, they are a unified force. Sister is a word, a relationship, they learned from her brother. The meaning: beloved and connected, but separate. Different but also similar, familiar.

“We were stars,” another says. “A god should not be bound to the earth for long.”

“Can you send us onward?” the original manifestation repeats.

Shikako looks at them, her fellow stars, then at Harry who has not just been watching idly by.

At some point during her conversation, he joined the manifestations crouched by the bloodstain. Through the crowd she can barely see the ghostly figure. Not glowing like those of Gelel, but pale and translucent, the ghost of a mortal being. The sacrificed researcher.

She hears the distraught words, “He was my friend,” and Harry’s quiet murmurs in return.

She joins them, the crowd solemnly letting her pass. “Him first?” she asks Harry, and he nods.

He holds a hand out to her, and somehow Shikako knows to take it within her own, ring glinting on her finger.

* * *

It’s a quietly tense wait. Gaara has faith in Shikako—not as much as her students do, but enough. He knows that if anyone can fix the Garden, it’s her; but he can be worried while also having faith.

He can read the confusion on the outpost personnel’s faces—confused as to why they’re still here, why they’re not making the trek back to Suna; with this many civilians, it will be slow going—but no questions are asked.

Well, not by them, anyway.

“Sparky sure is taking her sweet time about it, isn’t she?” Kankurou says, stepping to Gaara’s side, settling in easily to wait as well.

“Her… the Shinigami went in after her,” Gaara responds, watching. Already the Garden is losing its ominous edge, shadows no longer as dark. He thinks he can hear the burbling of the healing springs.

“Oh, shit, really? Well, this is a nice continuation,” Kankurou says nonsensically.

They wait and they watch, and through the treeline appear the Shinigami and Shikako, now wearing the shimmering cloak. They’re holding hands.

Kankurou crows, delighted, “There’s a ring!” Now that his brother has pointed it out, Gaara spots it, too, the ring he saw the Shinigami wearing earlier now on Shikako’s finger.

“Sensei!” her students cry out, breaking the shelter camp’s perimeter to run to her. She lets go of the Shinigami’s hand to meet them, equally eager, cloak billowing behind her.

Sono reaches her first, jumping, arms wrapping around Shikako’s neck and shoulders, legs likewise around her waist. Jinichi Kareino and Yuu Morihiro are not far behind, and while the latter doesn’t hesitate to fling his arms around her, the former hesitates, inspecting her carefully as if for injuries. Shikako pulls him into the hug anyway.

“Leaf nin,” Kankurou grumbles, rolling his eyes, but that’s all he says.

“It’s not bad,” Gaara says. He doesn’t say anything else either.

When the Shinigami catches up to their little reunion, he and Shikako exchange some quiet words before, between one blink and the next, he disappears.

“Damn, I was hoping for a little more, but I guess the ring gives me enough to work with,” Kankurou mutters to himself before the Leaf team joins them, Sono still clinging to Shikako’s back.

“Everything’s okay,” Shikako says, then clarifies, “The Garden is safe for habitation.”

“Geez, every time you come here, Sparky, so dramatic,” Kankurou says before stepping away, not giving her the opportunity to respond. He’ll coordinate with Saishin, get the shelter camp disassembled, and get everyone back where they were, as if no interruption occurred. If she says it’s safe, it’s safe.

“There is something you should know, though,” Shikako says to Gaara and hands over a black-banded scroll. As the five of them go to the heart of the Garden, a reversal of earlier, this time Shikako guiding them, she explains what happened. Parts are missing, he suspects, but he’s sure she has a reason for it. As they get to the clearing he sees the stone dais that once was part of the shrine has now become a fountain and the remaining missing researcher unconscious and cocooned up to the neck in stone.

“They weren’t happy with him, but they don’t believe in killing. You can do what you want with him, but not here,” she says, and thankfully the other Suna nin are busy reoccupying the Garden, because he knows they’d have problems if they heard her so casually giving the Kazekage orders.

Later, after the prisoner has been extricated and taken into custody—despite the smear of blood on his forehead, the only injury is his hand, easily taken care of—after the other researcher’s next of kin has been contacted, after everything has settled down into the actual calm of the Garden, Shikako comes to speak to him again, this time without her students. From the gruffly fond yelling Gaara can hear outside his temporary office, they’re with Kankurou’s students and driving him crazy.

“There’s something else,” she says, which is as much warning she gives before she reaches toward him, ring glinting on her finger—

Gaara knows Shikako, she wouldn’t harm him, so the shifting sand isn’t him.

—and between them is his mother, pale and translucent, tears in her eyes, but nonetheless smiling.

* * *

* * *

* * *

It’s a month and a half of seances—not a phrase she ever thought she’d use, though she supposes given the number of ghosts she encountered even before getting a nifty ring capable of letting her speak to them, it’s not too far off the mark—before the mission that brought her team to Sand comes to an end.

Unsurprisingly, her students have opinions to share.

“This is going to be another one of those missions that end up being re-ranked to S, isn’t it?” Punchy says, arms crossed and unimpressed. Unimpressed! By ghosts! It took her at least three missions involving ghosts for that to happen to her.

“People already don’t believe me when I say I’ve only completed D-ranks and S-ranks!” Bitey bemoans, arms thrown dramatically upward. Really, the things Kankurou’s been teaching them.

“They always believe you when you say who our sensei is,” Stabby says, patting him on his shoulder in an attempt to comfort. “And then they back away and make anti-jinx hand motions at us or run screaming.”

“Who does that?” Shikako asks her, because if anyone in Konoha is making her team feel uncomfortable or unwanted—

“She’s exaggerating,” Jinichi says, a momentary relief before he continues, “It’s only happened maybe five times, and they were the administrative shinobi.”

“It’s still funny,” Sono adds, and Shikako knows her well enough to believe her.

Yuu jumps in, “It doesn’t happen as much since now we get our missions directly from the Hokage. Though the faces he makes when you give your reports are a little…” He waves his hand in a movement she takes to mean ‘interesting.’

“I wonder what kind of face he’ll make this time,” Sono says musingly.

Shikako rolls her eyes. “Now he’s the one exaggerating.” Honestly, given the shenanigans they got up to as genin, Naruto really doesn’t have room to judge.

“But we should go over what parts of this mission are likely to be classified or not just in case,” she says to prepare them. Just because she was a paranoid, overly-secretive genin doesn’t mean her students are. At least, she hopes they aren’t.

Sand’s traditional, textile based, style of fuinjutsu: that stays a secret, even if the ghosts, grateful to speak to their descendants and pass down the lost art, included them in their lessons. Of her three students, Jinichi is the one who resonated best with it, much to Yuu’s chagrin, but not enough to inspire a fuinjutsu epiphany.

The month and a half of seances: only for the Hokage’s ears, never mind that it’s another one of those asymmetric secrets. Practically public knowledge in Sand versus being classified in Konoha.

Puppeteering lessons: completely okay to share. That’s what they came here for originally.

Zombie attack during their travel between Rivers and Sand: the attack itself, yes, and the fact that they were defeated, also yes. How they were defeated…

“Maybe we’ll keep that between us and Kankurou’s team,” Shikako says.

“And all the people who hear his Tale of Shikabane-hime and the Shinigami?” Yuu asks skeptically.

“Eh…”

“And all those people at the Garden?” Jinichi adds.

“Well…”

“Are we also keeping the events at the Garden a secret, too?” Sono asks, wide-eyed and completely earnest, which is what ultimately breaks Shikako.

“Fine, fine, I’ll tell him!” she says, disgruntled. Getting lectured by her students; is this what Kakashi-sensei felt all those years ago?

No, he was a walking disaster who needed all the help he could get.

“Now that my adorable genin are done bullying me, let’s see about getting ready to go home,” she says, warily eyeing the pile of stuff in the corner of the room that Yuu has somehow accumulated over the past few weeks.

“It’s a cultural exchange, Sensei! Those are souvenirs for people at home! What if we need it for the trip back?” Yuu protests immediately, his words sporadic and defensive, “This wouldn’t be a problem if you taught me hammerspace!”

Swiftly, his teammates abandon him to his fate. Sono tries to figure out the best way to transport the small puppet Kankurou gave her, what academy students use, he had said, never mind this one was newly crafted. Meanwhile, Jinichi ties and unties and reties a square of cloth around his neck. Yellow’s first successful attempt at Sand’s traditional style of fuinjutsu, a filter for dust, smoke, and other fumes.

Shikako lets Yuu argue against nothing for a while longer before conceding—not in teaching him hammerspace, no, because she doesn’t want to block his own fuinjutsu development—and making him another storage scroll for all of his things.

She looks at her students, heart overflowing with fondness, and says, “Let’s go home.”

* * *

The journey back to Land of Fire is largely uneventful, barring the accidental almost kidnapping of a noble child—they brought her back and exposed the nefarious aunt, it’s fine—so she doesn’t know why she ruins it.

Her students are safe and asleep in the border outpost; tomorrow they’ll make the final stretch to Konoha. Except for the two chuunin who glanced at her wide-eyed as she left, she’s the only one around. So she calls out for him.

“Harry? Can we talk?”

She doesn’t know why she thinks that will work, but she has the ring with the Resurrection Stone on her finger and the Invisibility Cloak around her shoulders and she calls for him.

When he appears, between one blink and the next, he has the Death God’s Mask on his head and the pendant which she once considered a stone of Gelel hanging around his neck. In his hand is the Elder Wand.

She says nothing.

“You wanted to talk?” Harry asks, an eyebrow raised. It is curious, not sardonic, and so she feels comfortable letting silence reign while she tries to arrange her words.

“What will happen when we make the final exchange?” The words are still wrong, but the question is close enough, she thinks, or at least Harry seems to understand what she’s trying to say.

“What do you think will happen?” he asks instead of answering her question.

“I don’t—” know, Shikako doesn’t say, because that’s not true. She has an idea what might happen, but she doesn’t, “—want that.”

“Want what?” Harry asks, infuriating.

“I don’t want to be you! I don’t want to be Master of Death or the God of Death or the Shinigami or whatever you are. I hate being called Shikabane-hime, because it’s stopped being a joke and become this—this title or curse or—I just want to be human and here and teach my students and make sure they don’t get into too much trouble and I don’t want to be a god, I just want to be—”

“Just Shikako,” Harry sums up, her irritated rambling spiraling down the drain. He looks sad.

“Yes,” she says and tries not to feel guilty.

After a moment of silence, Harry says, “Nothing will happen.”

“What?”

“Nothing will happen if or when we make a final exchange,” he says, and the words are right, the words are what she wanted to hear, but something about them isn’t quite… “We can trade these items back and forth and nothing new will happen. I gave you the cloak because it’s what you needed at the time, same with the ring. And I don’t think I’m depriving you of anything by having the mask and the pendant.”

She wasn’t using the mask. Its only purpose for her is to summon the Death God, and he’s already here. The pendant is, as proven, more for sentimental value than anything. The cloak is useful to her, as is the ring. That’s not the problem.

“You said nothing new will happen,” Shikako says, and Harry looks at her, caught. “That means something already happened.”

Silence reigns once more.

“When we first met. No, before,” Harry says, stumbling, “When you first put on the mask.”

That’s when it happened.

“You don’t need my Hallows,” the Master of Death says to her. “You already collected your own.”

No.

“It already happened.”

_(hello little god)_

No.

“You were already—”

“No,” Shikako says, and Harry falls silent.

She looks anywhere but at him, the familiar forest at night suddenly fascinating.

The silence stretches.

“The second time we met,” she finally says, meeting his eyes, “I summoned you to help me get rid of the zombies. And you’re still here—”

“There are still zombies.”

“—but what did I give in exchange?” she asks. “It’s not the mask, because you gave me the cloak. And it’s not like I killed anyone. Zombies are already dead, that wouldn’t work. So what did I give in exchange?”

This time it’s Harry who looks away, guilty.

“Nothing,” he says. Shikako knows better than to be relieved because he continues— 

“Nothing yet.”

* * *

When Shikako told people that she wanted to be a jounin sensei, she was met with varying levels of incredulity.

“You're joking” was pretty common, whether accompanied by laughter or skepticism.

“Those poor kids” was also common, teasing and serious both.

“Are you sure?” was better received, though not by much.

“If they try to leave the hospital before medical recommendations, I will know it’s your fault, and I will come after you.” Sakura said, tone flat, but eyes wild, which was simultaneously frightening and encouraging. Well, Shikako supposed it counted as encouragement in a twisted sort of way.

“You’ll learn a lot,” Kakashi-sensei said with a smirk, no doubt foreseeing all the stress and shenanigans she would have to put up with.

“You’ll have fun,” Sasuke said, a little accusatory, a little reassuring: all their missions together wouldn’t have been nearly as chaotic were she not enabling everyone.

“You’ll do great,” Naruto said, handing over three folders, grin bright and wide on his face, “Believe it.”

And Shikako, heart full, did.

* * *

Sensei rushes them back to Konoha, the mood strangely tense and serious. When they get to the Hokage’s Tower, she jumps the line. Nobody argues with her—why would they, how could they—but she believes in following the rules to the letter, if not in spirit, so this behavior is not only unusual, it’s alarming.

Her debrief is quick, efficient, and lacking any banter which is probably what puts the Hokage and the Jounin Commander on edge the most. Then, after she’s told them what she said she was going to, she dismisses her students.

“But Sensei—” Yuu protests, and while the hand on his shoulder is gentle, her tone is firm.

“Not this time,” she says simply, tersely, and all three of them are summarily pushed out of the Hokage’s office, door shut in their face.

“What’s going on?” Yuu asks.

Jinichi shrugs stiffly. He doesn’t know.

“We’re still doing post mission dinner, right?” Sono asks, too.

They exchange worried glances, looking at the door behind where Sensei is, before looking back at each other. It’s Sensei’s tradition, she wouldn’t miss it, surely?

* * *

“It’s Jashin,” she says to Naruto, to her brother, her long held hypothesis behind the zombies not risen by Edo Tensei finally coming to light.

They stare blankly at her, confused.

Of course they do. The name doesn’t mean anything to them. The last time he got close to breaching the world she stopped him _(hello little god)_ and was the only one left. After, her father and his teammates took care of Hidan.

As far as anyone else knows, what happened at the Land of Hot Springs remains a mystery. No one wants to investigate ground zero, and more besides, that’s where the zombies grow more powerful.

“Land of Hot Springs,” she confesses, years too late.

“‘Kako,” Shikamaru says, baffled but worried.

“We need to set up a strike force, multinational if that’s something the alliance demands,” she says, and if she looks at the space between them, meeting neither of their eyes, that’s fine, “Long distance, area of effect, fast.”

“Shikako,” Naruto says, eyebrows furrowed. He doesn’t address her words, maybe isn’t listening to them, focused more on her tone.

“Tokujou at least. Nothing involving sympathetic connections or draining chakra,” which takes out a large majority of Konoha’s clan techniques. That’s fine, she can be the representative.

“Shikako-chan,” Naruto says, and he hasn’t called her that in ages, a childish moniker that nonetheless brings her comfort, “What’s wrong?”

She doesn’t burst into tears, but only just. “I can’t let this be something my students have to deal with in the future. I can’t leave this world stuck with something worse than death.” She meets his eyes. “I need to fix my mistakes.”

* * *

Normally the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly, but no village wants to be the one who didn’t show up, too cowardly or too weak to send a representative.

“It’s a defining moment in world history,” Haku argues mildly; the pretty boy can’t do anything but, never mind he’s a jinchuuriki and in line to be Mizukage.

Temari rolls her eyes. “In that case, everyone here’s a glory hound,” she says.

Haku raises a dainty eyebrow. “Including you?” And it’s only because she spent two months in his overly humid hell of a village making sure her assigned brats didn’t drown that she knows he’s internally laughing at her.

“Hell no,” she answers proudly. “Suna nin pay their debts. And if Shikako wants me to exterminate a couple hundred zombies in the name of friendship or whatever Leaf nin are so obsessed with, it’s the least I can do.”

“Ah, so you’re here because of friendship,” Haku says, spotting the point only to completely dance around it. He smiles.

Temari doesn’t deign to give him a response, eyeing their surroundings instead. The place where Land of Hot Springs used to be is just as vastly, eerily empty as it was after the event years ago.

In the early stages before the war, it had been a buffer zone. After, it was considered a death trap. Then, when the war shifted to become humans against zombies, it became their territory. Nothing of value to protect. No reason not to just herd them there if destruction wasn’t possible. No man’s land.

But Temari had grown up beside the Dead Wastes, had seen it change into something else, something more, with her very own eyes. If anyone’s going to pull a miracle today, odds are it’ll be Shikako.

The strike force isn’t big. That would get in the way, and most of them have fought together, one way or another, enough to be familiar with each other’s abilities. Not that it’s too difficult, given the mission specifications. Long distance, area of effect, fast: she’s not Suna’s Wind Mistress for nothing.

She doesn’t have the same sensing ability as Kankurou, much less Shikako, but she can feel the air shift and meets Haku’s eyes. Zombies approaching.

Shikako steps forward finally and turns to all of them. “The more zombies we can destroy the better, but that’s not what we’re here for. We’re here to stop them at the source so we don’t have to keep watching our dead rise up and try to eat us. We’re here to make sure our students don’t end up being the ones to deal with this. We’re here so we can finally end this!”

For someone Kankurou says has stage fright, she’s not bad.

“Your main priority is to keep each other alive—we want to decrease the number of zombies, not add to it—and if you can, help me get to the center.”

“What happens then?” Temari asks, and Shikako looks at her, startled, as if she hadn’t expected anyone to ask. Probably not, because as far as Temari knows, Leaf nin are pretty shaky on the concept of plans.

Shikako grits her teeth and looks toward the vast devastation of what used to be Land of Hot Springs. Almost too quiet to hear, she says, “We make the world a better place.”

* * *

There’s something almost relaxing about being in the middle of a battle, surrounded by the undead, all of her allies at range and sending attacks her way. She doesn’t need to worry about anyone getting hurt, doesn’t need to hide her abilities, doesn’t even need to dodge really: the cloak, only partially on, somehow hides her from the zombies, and her shadow form takes care of friendly fire.

She takes a swing with her lightsaber, watching the lightning arc off it for a moment before she turns away. Because she can. Because she knows no one except the zombies are in its path to be hit.

If she wants to drop a couple of touch blasts for the hell of it, she can.

And she does.

And a cluster of zombies are reduced to nothing.

Because this is the easiest fight she’s had since… She doesn’t know when.

This wholesale destruction is easy! Fun, even. She could do this forever! She doesn’t know why she didn’t come here sooner. She should just stay—

“Shikako!” Harry snaps, and in an instant the fugue of violence and bloodlust clears away from her mind.

“W-what?” Shikako breathes, almost confused, but no. She knows what she’s doing. She knows why she’s here. She’s here to destroy—

“No,” she says, and shakes off the remnants of Jashin, heavy in the air. _(hello again little god)_

This is the epicenter. This is where she fought him off so many years ago, preventing his entry into the world. But some of him leaked through, that hunger and bloodlust and pain and violence and mindless, pointless hatred. It seeped into their world, found a pathway through the Edo Tensei, and began to raise the dead for itself.

Because when she stopped him, she used destruction, willfully or not. And yes, his Temple fell: his monks perished, the ritual interrupted and subverted. But destruction, in his name or not, would always fuel him. He was not as thwarted as it appeared. _(little god, all of this is mine and i will destroy it)_

And then she left. Ran away. Didn’t even seal the gate properly. Slammed it shut but didn’t lock it, _oh what a fool, that little god._ **_(your death will—)_**

“-kako! Shikako!” Harry’s voice calls out, and she can hear him again. His hands drop from where they’ve pulled the hood of the cloak up around her ears, keeping her safe.

“Don’t listen to him,” Harry says, taking her hands in his. She laughs, almost. Her hands are cold in his. She’d have thought, given the whole Master of Death thing, it’d be the other way around. “He can’t hurt you anymore, Shikako.”

She stares at their hands. The ring on her finger. Locked between their palms: on one side, her lightsaber, Sword of the Thunder God, and on the other, his Elder Wand, the Death Stick. The last of the Hallows yet to be exchanged.

“What do you need? How can I help?” Harry asks, almost desperate, and this is Harry. Just Harry. Not the Master of Death or the God of Death or the Shinigami. This is Harry, just Harry, who wants to protect those he cares about and make the world a better place.

She wants that, too.

“It can’t be destruction,” she says finally and tightens her grip on his hands. He looks relieved. “It can’t be destruction,” she repeats and lets go of him.

On one hand she wears his ring. In the other she holds the Elder Wand. In exchange, he holds the hilt of her lightsaber and watches, eyes wide. She smiles at him.

“This place, this world, is not yours,” Shikako says, a last defiance to Jashin, before she drives the Elder Wand into the ground, into the ash and dust and dirt, all that remains of a once vibrant land. And she pushes into it—chakra and life energy and willpower. When that’s not enough, she pulls. Because everything must die, it is inevitable, even gods who were human then stars then not, even gods who are fueled by hatred and pain and destruction.

Because everything must die. 

… But that’s only because first they lived.

* * *

From her aerial view riding the winds with her fan, with an annoying but necessary passenger on board, Temari sees it.

Again—in a place with no life, against all common sense and laws of nature and who knows what else—she sees it. Like with the Dead Wastes becoming the Garden of Life, but different, somehow, more.

It’s not life energy accumulating over millennia, hibernating and only waiting to be awakened. It’s not a bunch of idiot teenagers running headfirst into something they don’t understand. It’s—

A tree growing and living at impossible speeds, seasons and centuries passing in moments, massive and reaching for the stars, leaves a vibrant, joyful green. The sun seems brighter, too, the light no longer gray and drab and eerie. The air also feels better, cleaner; she hadn’t even noticed how horrible it had been to breathe until it changed.

“—a miracle,” Haku says, just as much in awe as she is.

“Figures it’d be a tree. Leaf nin,” Temari scoffs. She just knew Shikako would do something like this.

* * *

Sensei returns only a few days later. It feels like longer, honestly, waiting for her.

They still don’t know why she left, only know the Hokage’s door shut behind them, not even a goodbye as she went on a mission without them.

“She was fine in Sand,” Yuu recalls, the three of them sat reluctantly in Ichiraku. None of them particularly like ramen, nor do they particularly dislike it either, but after several consecutive meals of it, it kind of gets tiring.

“Shh,” Sono hisses. “There he is!”

“This is probably some level of treasonous,” Jinichi mutters. Stalking and ambushing the Hokage at his favorite restaurant probably isn’t the best use of their time. But it’s certainly not the worst.

Sono is the one that leaps at him first. Immediately she is caught, hanging by the ankle, gripped casually in hand by Sensei’s sensei. Yuu is next and gets immediately tangled up in wires, the head of Konoha’s military police looking down at him curiously amused.

Jinichi, because he’s not an idiot, just walks up to the Hokage.

“Why are you like this?” the Hokage asks earnestly before turning a glare at his former teammate when he laughs.

“You gave her a team,” Sensei’s sensei says. He lifts Sono up as if presenting evidence. She growls in protest. “How did you think they’d end up?”

“I don’t know!” answers the Hokage, a pretty bold position from their village leader. “She likes them, what was I supposed to do?”

This is why none of them care about authority. Sensei can pretty much do whatever she wants, and not even Kages can stop her.

“This is the big threat we’re supposed to protect you from?” Sasuke-san asks, already leaning down to release Yuu.

“They keep showing up! When I’m trying to eat Ichiraku!”

“We’re paying customers,” Jinichi counters.

“Where is Sensei?” Sono asks, undeterred by her current state. Then again, Jinichi and Yuu have found her asleep while hanging upside down before, so maybe she thinks it’s soothing.

“She’s on a mission. I can’t tell you where,” the Hokage says, exasperated. He sits down at his usual spot almost sulkily, pointedly ignoring them as he pulls his bowl of ramen closer.

“Oh, so we’re playing the secrets game,” Yuu says, only halfway freed from the wires. “We can play that game, too.”

“No,” Jinichi corrects him, “we can’t.” Sensei wouldn’t appreciate it. She likes her secrets and likes it best when the team keeps each other’s secrets.

Yuu’s mouth twists. “No, we can’t,” he repeats, standing a little shamefacedly beside Jinichi once freed. Jinichi nudges him, if only to make him stop looking like that.

“What secrets?” Sasuke-san asks.

“What secrets, what?” Sono asks, nonsensically. Perhaps assuming she has too much blood flow to the head, Sensei’s sensei sets her upright on the ground.

Joke’s on him. She’s always like that.

“Yeah, what secrets?” the Hokage asks, mouth partially full of noodles.

Jinichi, Yuu, and Sono exchange glances, coming to an agreement.

“Oh no, we couldn’t possibly interrupt the Hokage’s lunch,” Yuu says, backing up towards the exit.

“What secrets, what?” Sono repeats, following Yuu. “We don’t know any secrets Sensei told us to keep secret.”

Jinichi pays their bill, nodding respectfully to Ichiraku-san, then bolts out the door, one hand grabbing each of his teammates and pulling them along behind him.

They don’t expect to get far with Sensei’s former team chasing them, and they don’t, not really, but that has less to do with being caught as expected and more to do with them running into Sensei.

She’s returned, that guy she summoned standing behind her, and when she spots them all, she smiles.

Sono jumps on her back immediately. Maybe more for the tactical advantage than anything else, but Yuu and Jinichi follow suit, crowding close.

“I know it’s a little early,” Sensei says, voice heavy with fondness. “Or maybe a little late,” she amends, sheepishly, “but how about that post-mission dinner?”

* * *

They’re at her house. It’s not quite big enough to fit everyone—five adults and three teenagers, some who have, bafflingly, silently declared a grudge against each other—but she can’t inflict both of her teams on an ill-deserving public restaurant and, really, Shikako just wanted to be home.

But maybe not specifically in her home, she thinks, if they’re going to be this loud. She steps outside onto the tiny veranda facing the forested edges of the Nara clan’s property and takes a deep breath, enjoying the relative calm. It’s been hours already and the sun has gone down, time matching their pretense of a post-mission dinner. She’s explained some things, but not everything.

There’ll be questions later, she knows: Kakashi quietly curious at Harry’s presence by her side, Sasuke’s brief stare at the ring on her finger. Naruto knows what the Death God’s Mask looks like; he was the one that let her have it, as close to permission from the original Uzumaki holder as she was going to get. He must be wondering why she gave it away, why Harry wears it, even askew and off his face as it is. Her students, too, will want to know what she’s done, why she left so quickly, if there are any secrets they can share with her.

But those are questions future Shikako will have to deal with. For now, present Shikako just wants to take a breath.

The door opens, the muffled sound broadcasting clearly for a moment, before it closes. She almost winces, preparing for an interrogation, until she realizes it’s just Harry.

“They’re… lively,” he says. When she laughs, he smiles sheepishly in return.

The silence is comfortable between them, but she breaks it anyway. “So when do I pay my side of the exchange?” she asks.

He looks at her, confused.

“We solved it. Soon the dead will go back to being dead. No more zombies, that’s what I asked for. And I haven’t paid anything yet.”

Harry shakes his head. “It doesn’t work like that. Not between us,” he says. “It’s not a debt that you pay off. It’s giving, whether or not in exchange.” As if to punctuate his point, he gives her back the lightsaber.

“But the wand,” she stammers. “The tree—I don’t—what do I do?”

He takes her hand in his, which effectively silences her.

“It’s a gift,” he says, rolling his eyes, ever so human. “You don’t have to do anything but live. Be here and human and teach your students. Be Shikako. Just Shikako.”

That sounds okay.

“Then, one day, when you feel you’ve done enough, after you’ve made the world a better place, you’ll die,” he says so simply, a statement of fact, inevitable. It’s nothing to be afraid of. “And, if you want, you’ll go onwards.”

She looks at their hands, intertwined, then meets the vibrant, joyful green of his eyes. “Together?” she asks.

He smiles at her. “If you want. It’ll be an adventure.”

She smiles back; that sounds like an exchange she’s willing to make.

**Author's Note:**

> The relationship between Harry and Shikako can be considered either platonic or romantic.
> 
> ... But if a person gives you a lightsaber, helps you fight off an eldritch god of destruction, banters with your students, and you like holding their hand then they're probably A+ dating material. (Get yourself a partner who gives you magic items and is also the Master of Death?)


End file.
